Henry

Things

* I’m told the new Third Coast is out in which I’ve got a couple of short shorts – “The Affair Ends Badly” and “An Emissary Visits the King” which are mostly notable for being very different from each other to the point of this more or less being my Twins. A lot of good names there so go pick it up. Which I’ll do whenever it catches up to me.

* A couple weeks back I had two pieces from my Sire Lines series up at the always excellent poetry journal Similar Peakshere. It’s been really cool seeing these pop up online the last couple of years and grateful to all the new journals I’ve got to be a part of while spreading these malicious lies about historical figures. These two are Henry Ford and George Armstrong Custer. They’re both sort of jerks. That part is probably true.

It’s good, I think, but I wish they had told me the location of the trash bins so I didn’t have to peer through my blinds hoping to spot a neighbor carrying a white Hefty bag. Because if I ever see such a neighbor I’m going to have to quickly grab my own white Hefty bag and follow them to wherever the trash bins are. Then I’ll have to pretend like it’s just a coincidence that I’m going to the trash bins at the same time. This will require me to make casual, walking-to-the-trash-bin conversation.

Neighbor: Hey, did you just move in?Me: Yes, sir.Neighbor: Cool, cool. How’s it going?Me: I know where the trash bin is.Neighbor: Great, so you won’t mind giving the password to the minotaur then?Minotaur: Aaaargh!Me: Skittles?Neighbor: Awesome, I’m having a barbeque later.

Also, I’m sort of curious about how the UPS/USPS/FedEx people are getting through the gate. Do they all have keys? And, if so, is that complicated with all of the other buildings they have to go into? Does the minotaur let them in? I think about this as I wait for someone to take out their trash.

Furthermore, I find the choice of having sparkly, stenciled art on one of the building walls to undermine the otherwise self-conscious industrial-age penal features–exposed brick, cement floors, iron gate–which make the rest of the building a modern day workhouse with, ultimately, the gate holding us in rather than them out. These nods to an industrial-penal system acknowledges us, the tenant/prisoners, as holders of disciplinary careers who will continue to propagate the system which punishes us unawares.

Or at least that’s what the building would say if someone hadn’t spray painted a sparkly dragonfly on the wall.